


Fire In the Head

by salacious_crumpet



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Action/Adventure, Claustrophobia, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Light Dom/sub, On Hiatus, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-05 17:00:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10312937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salacious_crumpet/pseuds/salacious_crumpet
Summary: After ten years of obscurity on Balmorra, Lieutenant Malavai Quinn had almost given up on wanting anything more for himself – until Darth Baras’s newest apprentice entered his life. (Spoilers for the Sith Warrior storyline. Liberties will be taken with the story because that's the way this author rolls.)A/N: This story is on hiatus.





	1. First Impressions

Lieutenant Malavai Quinn woke up with a headache on the day that Darth Baras’s newest apprentice was due to arrive on Balmorra.

It certainly wasn’t Quinn’s first headache, nor was it likely to be his last, unfortunately, but it was damned inconvenient nonetheless. He dragged himself out of bed the moment his alarm went off and spent some additional time in the refresher in hopes the hot water would ease the pounding in his skull. When he emerged and wiped the thick fog off his mirror to stare blearily at his own reflection he could see that his blue eyes were bloodshot and his naturally pale skin had taken on a sickly hue. There was no hope for it, though: Sith concerns waited for no man, incoming migraine or no.

The headache did nothing to lessen his nerves. He desperately wanted to make a good impression on Darth Baras’s apprentice, knowing that her word could go a long way towards helping or hindering his career, and he needed to be in top form in order to impress her. Baras hadn’t provided him with much information regarding his apprentice, save that she would be arriving sometime in the late afternoon and would immediately set to work handling her master’s assignment – and that Quinn was expected to provide her with anything and everything she required. That was a suspiciously vague sentiment, but he tried not to worry about it too much. Sith were capricious and deadly, but Darth Baras had done much to protect Quinn’s career following his disgrace at Druckenwell and had been nothing but even-handed towards Quinn; he could only hope the Darth’s apprentice would be likeminded.

By the time Quinn was showered and dressed a fresh pot of caf had finished percolating and he poured himself a cup, savouring the aroma. It was from his own reserves; the cantina at Sobrik had unreliable supplies and soldiers were not expected to be particularly picky so long as they were kept fed, but Quinn’s sister knew he had a fondness for the dark roasts from Charra and sent him sealed tins in his monthly care packages. In addition to being delicious (and blessedly strong), Quinn had found his private reserves made for useful bribes, on the rare occasion when such distasteful acts were necessary. He considered himself above such tactics, but when it came to his service to the Empire Malavai Quinn was not opposed to taking advantage of another man’s weaknesses for luxury and indulgence.

Caf in hand, the lieutenant sat down at his desk and began pouring over the nightly reports, using a stylus to make notes on a small datapad. His office and barracks shared the same small space and he kept everything neatly organized, making the most of the limited room. Years of military training and discipline combined with a general lack of sentimentality to serve him well on Balmorra: being organized and disciplined meant that his office was never cluttered or untidy, and lacking in sentimentality meant that he had few personal possessions to fuss over. The only concession to mawkishness he permitted himself was a small holoportrait that sat over his desk – a picture of his younger sister Elinor with her two small children – and a model spaceship he had put together in his admittedly limited spare time. Aside from that his office and barracks were all business, and that business was the servitude of the Empire and Darth Baras. The information Baras had ordered him to put together was already set aside, a stack of datapads and maps and inventories that the apprentice could peruse at her leisure once she arrived. Quinn had already made certain everything she needed would be at hand for the instant she walked into his office, and he had also compiled some additional reports and memos that might prove useful to her. Baras had left the lieutenant more or less in the dark about what his apprentice would actually be doing on Sobrik, which was certainly the Sith Lord’s prerogative but did make Quinn’s role somewhat more complicated as he was required to anticipate needs he had no actual insight into. Still, he had grown accustomed to the way Baras operated and he was reasonably certain he would be able to provide the apprentice with whatever assistance she might require.

Quinn put the datapad down on his desk, rubbing a hand over his eyes. The headache had settled in behind his right temple and he felt a steady throbbing sensation that seemed to beat in time to his heart. That was the way his migraines usually operated, generally taking up residence on one side of his head or the other, and it wouldn’t have been too bad if it hadn’t felt as though someone was driving a red-hot spike through his skull. Some days, when the migraine was particularly awful, Quinn fantasized about taking a vibroscalpel to his temple and routing out the source of the pain, but it was only a fantasy; there were, as yet, no known permanent cures for migraines, and self-lobotomy was certainly not a part of his medical training.

Still, a man could dream.

As far as Quinn was concerned the migraines were just one more complaint he could lay at the feet of Moff Broysc, along with the stagnation of his military career and his involuntary exile to Balmorra. Prior to Druckenwell he hadn’t suffered much beyond the standard headache, but following his court martial and “interrogation” – a polite way of saying he spent a week being tortured by Imperial Intelligence, at Broysc’s command – he had started having migraines about once or twice a week. The military doctors he saw chalked the condition up to the stress of his situation, blaming the migraines on lack of sleep, excess of worry and tension, and general poor living conditions, but Quinn worried that the interrogators had damaged something in him, some delicate neural pathway that wasn’t meant to be beaten or jarred or exposed to electrical currents. His doctors had all assured him that he was otherwise healthy, but aside from some stims to ease his nausea and a kolto injection for the pain (when he could afford the grogginess that accompanied said injections, which was rare) there wasn’t much that could be done for him.

The fact that he could function while suffering from a migraine had led some of his fellow soldiers to insist that he was just making it up, that a _real_ migraine sufferer would have been too debilitated to work. After a while he had simply stopped seeking treatment, since the idea of being known as a malingerer angered him more than the pain and nausea affected him. His career had already taken a staggering blow; he couldn’t afford to be seen as weak or damaged or, worse yet, _lacking in ambition._ Over time Quinn had concluded that those people who were completely debilitated by their migraines were simply lacking in sufficient motivation to push past the pain. He had motivation; more than that, he had no other choice. The Balmorran Resistance wouldn’t stop waging war on Imperial forces just because he felt like his head was going to explode, and Darth Baras would certainly abandon him entirely if he failed even once to get out of bed and answer his summons.

So Quinn worked in the relative peace and quiet of his office, the overhead lights dimmed to 40% brightness to save his eyes, a continuous flow of caf and stims to keep him on his feet. He knew his stomach wouldn’t be able to handle anything more than caf or water until the worst of the migraine passed, so he made certain to keep drinking from his mug or his water bottle, always keeping one on hand at all times. Sometimes rehydration helped; sometimes the stimulant effect of the caf helped. At the very least it was less bother to throw up liquids, and he had easy access to his private refresher for the times he couldn’t keep anything down. (Quinn prided himself on his excellent self-control, however, so his nausea seldom had opportunity to interfere with his productivity.)

It was a dreadful way to start the day and certainly not the first impression he wanted to make on Baras’s apprentice. Quinn was afraid of what she would think when she saw him, all bloodshot eyes and ghastly complexion, but it couldn’t be helped. His options were to retreat to his bunk for the remainder of the day or to tough it out and hope for the best – and the former was no option at all.

His underlings were all familiar enough with Quinn to know the routine when he was under the weather, and most of them were competent enough at their jobs to require little in the way of direction. As the morning progressed he had few holocalls and fewer visits, his fellow soldiers performing their duties with minimal guidance from him. By lunch – a piece of toast, consumed slowly and cautiously lest it prove unwelcome – the worst of the pain had passed and the nausea was mostly under control. He wouldn’t say that he felt _well,_ per se, but he had certainly felt _worse._

He managed a brief catnap at his desk, confident in his ability to awaken instantly the moment anyone walked into his office. By mid-afternoon he was able to turn the lights up to 60% brightness and felt a brief and absurd sense of triumph when his toast and a handful of crackers stayed down. As the meeting with Darth Baras’s apprentice approached Quinn ducked into his refresher to splash some cold water on his face and was pleased to see that his eyes looked less red than they had earlier in the day, although he was still too pale (even for him). Uniform pressed and straightened, hair neatly combed, Quinn felt presentable enough under the circumstances, if not ideal.

It was close to 1700 hours when Corporal Jillins arrived to update Quinn on the latest reports out of the Balmorran Arms Factory. Quinn couldn’t be certain Darth Baras’s apprentice would require the information – so far as he knew, she would only be going out to the satellite control tower near the Okara Droid Factory, nowhere near the Arms Factory – but he didn’t want to risk missing some important piece of information she would require to do her job. The Arms Factory was still, regrettably, under the control of the resistance, but Quinn knew Imperial Intelligence had eyes and ears on the area and had hoped Jillins would be able to put together some intel. The moment Quinn saw the expression on Jillins’ sunburned face, however, he had known that wouldn’t be the case.

“Did Imperial Intelligence have nothing to give you, or did you lack the coercive skills to convince them to hand their files over?” Quinn asked the young corporal, resisting the urge to massage his temple and instead standing at parade rest in front of his work station.

Jillins paled, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he nervously struggled to put his response together.

“They didn’t have any intel to give me, sir,” Jillins replied. “Said their operative hadn’t checked in yet, that it’d be another day or two before they’d have anything useful.”

 _Another day or two._ Quinn sighed, closing his eyes. He had no way of knowing how long Baras’s apprentice would be on Balmorra. Would he have enough time to get the intel on BAF, assuming she even ended up needing to go there in the first place? He glanced back at his desk, where his maps and datapads were neatly piled, and knew he had some information he could pass on to her – floor plans, rough troop estimates (outside of the factory, at least; he had hoped for more insight on what the Resistance had waiting for them _inside_ the factory). It wouldn’t be enough if she needed to make a foray into the factory, however.

Jillins could see the irritation on Quinn’s face and hastened to add, “Sir, I apologize, sir! It was the best I could do!” There was a faint note of pleading in his voice, and that, more than anything, made Quinn come close to losing his temper.

“If that’s your best, you’re useless to me,” he snapped, suddenly becoming aware of another presence in the doorway of his office. He didn’t glance over, but instead focused his attention on the young corporal, wanting to drive the point home as much as he could before dismissing the man. “I can shoot you dead with a clear conscience. Is that what you want?” He could, but he probably wouldn’t – not that he would tell Jillins that, mind you.

“N-no, sir!”

Quinn sighed again, imagining – not for the first time – that this must be what it felt like to be the parent of a particularly thick-headed and wayward child. His exile to Balmorra had more or less crushed Quinn’s hopes and dreams of a family of his own, but moments like this, where he found his patience tested almost beyond his limits, made him wonder if perhaps it was for the best, that maybe he wasn’t particularly well-suited for fatherhood. It’s not as though his own father could be held up as much of an example. “Then focus, Jillins. Dismissed.”

He watched Jillins hurry out of his office, only now acknowledging the two women who stood in the doorway. As he took in the dark red robes one of the women wore, he realized with a sinking heart that this must be Darth Baras’s apprentice. Of course she would arrive just as he was in the middle of addressing an underling’s failure. His head throbbed and for a moment the room spun rather alarmingly, but he managed to get himself under control and settled back into parade rest as he nodded towards his guests.

Darth Baras had not given him any information about his apprentice aside from using female pronouns to refer to her, so Quinn had not known exactly what to expect. Given what he knew about the Sith Empire as a whole and Baras in particular, he had been expecting to see either a pure-blooded Sith or, frankly, a human who looked somewhat like Quinn himself, all pale skin and dark hair. Baras’s apprentice _was_ dark-haired and human, but at first glance she appeared to be the kind of woman one could expect to see in a Jedi recruitment holovid – her appearance evoked words like “wholesome” and “vibrant” and “healthy.” She was apple-cheeked and had a sweet-natured, smiling face, with sleek blue-black hair pulled back in a smooth bun and dark green eyes the colour of leaves in shadow. Her skin was several shades darker than Quinn’s, and it was difficult to tell whether that was her natural colour or if she was simply tanned; in either event, it contributed further to the impression of robust good health and vibrancy. She didn’t resemble a Sith so much as she looked like someone who would be featured in a healthy living holovid, extolling the virtues of eating right and getting plenty of exercise – preferably outdoors.

Her companion was a blue-skinned Twi’lek woman who Quinn initially took to be a slave, except that he could see high-quality blasters on her hips and no sign of a slave collar around her neck. She stood close to the Sith, almost clinging to her for protection, but her expression was unafraid. Her lavender eyes took in the sight of Quinn’s office with interest, and Quinn could see a shrewdness in her that was cleverly masked under the appearance of servility.

Quinn’s gaze went back to the other woman, and as she smiled at him he was startled by how young she looked. Her youth reminded him of the officers he had witnessed being promoted beyond him – younger than he, less skillful or ambitious than he, but without the stigma of Druckenwell and a Moff’s anger to hold them back. He felt a brief rush of anger at the knowledge that even had he not been demoted this woman would still outrank him – this was the Sith Empire, after all, and the lowliest Sith apprentice outranked the highest Moff. A quirk of fortune or genetic lottery had granted her something that he had worked his entire life towards. His anger was quickly replaced by worry, however: how young _was_ Baras’s apprentice? The Dark Lord’s assignments were dangerous, and Quinn was suddenly concerned that he was going to be expected to send a child – a teenager at best, surely – to her death.

Long exposure to the lords of the Sith enabled Quinn to quickly master his emotions, and the expression he bestowed upon the young apprentice was polite, if a bit stiff. Regardless of her youth it wasn’t Quinn’s place to question her suitability to serve Darth Baras - and by now he should be well accustomed to dealing with people younger than him who nonetheless far outstripped him in rank and standing. He bowed to her, ignoring the way the movement sent new jolts of pain to his head, and she smiled again and swept into the room.

Almost immediately he could feel the power radiating off of her and it took his breath away. Force-blind as he was Quinn had no way of knowing exactly what it was he felt, but there was a vibrancy, an energy about her that seemed to fill the room and made her seem much larger than she was.

And she was a tiny thing, he realized as she came closer. He was more than a foot taller than she was; he probably outweighed her by fifty pounds or more. He didn’t let her delicate appearance fool him, however. He knew she didn’t need to be seven feet tall and two hundred pounds of sheer muscle to crush him like a bug where he stood. Even the tiniest –

_… prettiest …_

– Sith could be incredibly dangerous.

She _was_ pretty, though.

Quinn mastered his thoughts again, trying not to reflect too closely on the fact that Baras’s apprentice _was_ rather attractive, or that her sumptuous red robes clung to an appealingly feminine form. He wondered, briefly, if she was the sort of Sith who could read minds. He rather desperately hoped not, since he seemed completely incapable of getting his thoughts under control. He blamed the migraine.

“I apologize for the delay, my lord,” he said, once he had gained some semblance of equilibrium. He bowed again: it never hurt to be overly obsequious in the presence of a Sith lord. “Lieutenant Malavai Quinn. I’m to be your liaison here on Balmorra.”

“Keszharra,” she answered him, and for a brief moment he couldn’t decide if she had given him a name or had sneezed on him. She saw his obvious hesitation and repeated the name slowly, the syllables rolling together off her tongue. With a sunny smile she shrugged and said, “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Keszharra gestured briefly at her companion and introduced the Twi’lek as Vette; Vette, for her part, nodded once in Quinn’s direction and went back to staring at his office. More to the point, he realized with some dismay that she was staring at his work station, at the holoportrait and model ship on his desk. He felt uncomfortably vulnerable having a stranger scrutinizing his personal possessions, but if the Twi’lek’s companion wasn’t going to rein her in then he didn’t feel that it was his place to do so.

“And to you, my lord,” Quinn replied, with another bow. He seemed to be doing that a lot, and he wondered if there was a polite limit on how many times one could be expected to bow in the presence of a Dark Lord. Would the action start to lose all meaning if he kept doing it? More importantly, would his head roll off – as it felt like it was threatening to do, the pounding in his temple getting worse every second – if he did it again? “Lord Baras will brief you personally, but I’m to acquaint you with the climate here on Balmorra first.”

“By all means, go ahead,” responded the Sith, giving him a slight nod. He allowed his gaze to linger on her face, and as he noticed small lines around her mouth and eyes he upped his estimation of her age by a few years. Younger than him, certainly, but probably only by about a decade, as opposed to his original estimate of her being in her late teens or early twenties. He had assumed she would be young, given that she was Baras’s newest apprentice and had only recently completed her training on Korriban, but he felt reassured by the knowledge that they were not so far apart in age – and that he was not going to be asked to send a child to her death.

Quinn also noticed the faint scarring on the left side of her face. She had a way of holding herself – head tilted just so – that managed to make the scarring unnoticeable, but up close he couldn’t help but see it. Burn scars, he suspected, the markings silvered with age. It would be rude to ask, but he was definitely curious. Strangely enough, he didn’t find the marks unattractive; if anything, they were a testament to her strength and resilience. It made him feel as though he and Baras’s apprentice were kindred spirits – after all, they were both damaged goods. In a way it made her seem more relatable to him.

He felt the weight of her gaze upon him and a faint blush tinged his cheeks at the awareness that he had been staring. He cleared his throat and launched into the briefing he had prepared for her on the political situation on Balmorra, taking comfort in the familiarity of his work.

“Even though the Empire wrestled control from the Republic during the war, we were never able to completely eradicate them,” he informed her, gesturing towards a map readout on his holoterminal. The display showed a full map of Balmorra, with red marking areas of Imperial control and grey indicating pockets of resistance. There was an awful lot of grey. “There is a rather sizable resistance movement. No one wants to admit it, but it’s clear that the Republic is backing it.”

Keszharra looked thoughtful. “Maybe I’ll have time to do something about that.”

“Something tells me your presence here will leave an indelible impression on the state of things, and I look forward to it.” Quinn blushed again, aware that his comments made him sound like some mindless bootlicker, when he had simply meant that the woman seemed competent and ambitious. He sighed inwardly and latched onto another subject: “I have a secure line to Lord Baras. I’ll patch him through immediately.”

It was one of the rare occasions where Darth Baras’s appearance came as a welcome distraction. Normally Quinn felt no relief at seeing his patron – the man terrified him, as well he should, given the power he held over Quinn. He owed much of his current position to Baras’s efforts; without Baras, he would no doubt be languishing on some more inhospitable planet like Hoth or Tatooine, with no hope of ever recovering his career. The past ten years on Balmorra hadn’t exactly been pleasurable, but if Moff Broysc had had his way Quinn would have been ashes in an urn already. He had Baras to thank for that, as well as for this current opportunity to improve his station.

Even by holocommunication Darth Baras was a large and imposing presence. His holographic form hovered in the air between Quinn and Keszharra, his masked visage at once familiar and unsettling to Quinn. The Sith Lord looked at Quinn and made a gesture of dismissal.

“Ah, I see you’ve convened with my apprentice.” Baras’s voice rang out in the quiet of Quinn’s office, echoing off the metal walls. “Very good, lieutenant. Leave us.”

Another man might have been insulted by the order to exit his own office, but Malavai was familiar with Baras’s ways, and he respected his master’s need for privacy in dealing with his apprentice. He would admit to a certain curiosity – it was easy enough to tell himself that listening in on the conversation could provide him with valuable intelligence that would enable him to offer Lord Keszharra better support – but he wasn’t foolish enough to disobey his patron. Quinn turned on his heel and headed towards his private barracks.

He left the door open in case Lord Keszharra required anything further of him. As he turned he saw that Keszharra’s companion, the Twi’lek Vette, had also stepped away from Darth Baras and his apprentice and was continuing to look around his office with undisguised curiosity. Quinn fought the urge to tell her to mind her own business – there was nothing terribly private in his office, after all, and unless she started poking around in drawers or turning on terminals she was unlikely to be able to snoop around in anything classified. Still, he remained uncomfortable with her scrutiny and wished she would have gone outside.

Quinn ran a hand over his face, digging his thumb in at his temple. The sensation was briefly distracting from the continuous pain in his head, but the moment he stopped the massage the pain returned. What he needed was a good dose of kolto and a full night’s rest; what he was going to get was likely several more hours of work and pacing in front of his work station while Darth Baras’s apprentice went about her task. He let his shoulders slump, briefly, before remembering Vette’s watchful gaze and straightening himself again. He could do this. He had suffered much worse than this, after all.

It was difficult to accomplish anything useful in his barracks, given that his work station and most of his datapads were out in the office. Quinn mostly just found himself standing and pacing, waiting for Lord Keszharra to finish up her conversation with her master. He was relieved to discover that Vette had found something else to study in the meantime, and saw that the Twi’lek was going over the titles of the datapads on his shelves, running a finger along the spines as she catalogued their contents. Most of the datapads were in some way or another related to Quinn’s work: he didn’t have a lot of spare time for light reading, and his office reflected that. There were a handful of historical volumes that constituted entertainment for him, as well as one or two works of historical fiction, adventurous stories where heroes fought in well-known battles and traveled to far-flung reaches of the galaxy. As a little boy Quinn had imagined himself living the stories contained in those datapads, but now as an adult approaching middle age the best he could do was to enjoy the familiar volumes.

Darth Baras wrapped up his conversation and Lord Keszharra motioned for Quinn to rejoin her in his office. He spent a few minutes outlining the plans he had put together to assist her in her operation, running her through the logistics of destroying the satellite control tower, and was relieved to discover that Baras’s apprentice was a quick study. She didn’t offer him any additional insight into what she was doing on Balmorra, but she appeared grateful for the assistance he offered her. Once he was confident she knew what she was doing Quinn handed her the explosives and she and her overly curious companion were on their way.

Rubbing his temples once again, Quinn took up a position in front of his work station and fitted a communicator to his ear, then adopted a parade rest stance and prepared to wait.


	2. Wrecking Ball

“So, just out of curiosity, is the stick surgically inserted up the ass upon reaching adulthood, or are Imperials born with it there?” Vette had been dying to ask that question the moment she and Keszharra had walked into the lieutenant’s office, and it burst out of her the instant the two of them stepped outside.

Keszharra – otherwise known as Kez or Kesh to Vette – paused mid-step to turn and look at Vette. For a brief moment Vette was afraid she had angered the Sith lord, but then her lips quirked and she burst out laughing. A squad of Imperial soldiers heard her and cast curious glances in their direction, but apparently had enough familiarity with the Sith to know better than to investigate further. For all they knew she was laughing about slaughtering a room full of orphans or something.

“Come on, Vette, he wasn’t that bad!” Keszharra chuckled, one hand on her stomach as if to suppress her mirth. She had a tendency to do that, Vette had noticed: she would cover her mouth when laughing, or try to staunch it in some other way, as if somewhere along the line she had been forbidden from expressing more positive emotions. Vette found this odd, given that Kesh seemed to laugh rather a lot for a Sith lord. (And honestly, who would be so stupid as to tell one of the Sith-y ones that they weren't allowed to laugh?) “I thought he was kind of cute, actually.”

Vette blinked, picturing the lieutenant in question. “Cute” was not the first word that came to mind when she thought of the stuffy Imperial, but she could admit that she wasn’t the best judge of attractiveness when it came to humans. Not that she was speciesist, of course. She just didn’t find the whole “pasty skin” thing to be much of a turn-on. And this Imperial in particular really did seem like he had something permanently lodged up his ass, which made him all the less attractive to her.

“Mmhmm,” Vette replied noncommittally, not wanting to get into an argument with Keszharra over whether or not Lieutenant Quinn was a fine example of human male attractiveness. “You should go for him, my lord. He’s all yours.”

“Of course he is,” was Keszharra’s amused response, as the Sith lord raised a dark eyebrow at Vette.

Vette rolled her eyes, knowing perfectly well that Keszharra would see this as a challenge – one that she would undoubtedly win before long. Vette had spent enough time in Imperial space to have heard the rumours about Sith appetites, and while there were times that Keszharra’s behaviour seemed out of character for the standard Sith, when it came to notches on the bedpost she was apparently no different. She had avoided entanglements while they were still on Korriban, but Dromund Kaas had been another story and Vette had borne witness to one conquest after another. (Well, not _literally_ witness; Keszharra might have been a typically pervy Sith but at least she didn’t invite – or force – Vette to watch.) On the plus side as far as Vette was concerned all of Keszharra’s partners appeared to have been extremely willing, so that was … something.

Still. _Ew._

Thinking back to the man in question, Vette wondered about him. In addition to being too kriffing pale and stuffy, he also seemed incredibly tightly wound, and she was curious as to whether that was his natural state of existence or if it was just because Keszharra was there. People had that way of reacting negatively to the presence of a Sith lord, and Keszharra was no exception – once people realized she _was_ a Sith lord. Apparently “tiny, smiling brunette” did not immediately fit the description for the standard Sith, and at first glance most people had a tendency to overlook or underestimate her, until she did or said something to remind them of who and what she was. Which was strange, because to Vette it seemed like there was a giant cloud of roiling energy that surrounded Keszharra at all times, making her seem larger than life and causing her presence to fill up the room, and honestly, how could people _not_ notice that?

It shouldn’t have surprised Vette, really, the way people were quick to underestimate Keszharra at first glance. After all, they did the same thing to Vette. People saw what they wanted or expected to see, and didn’t hasten to change their judgment unless that change was forced on them. Folks looked at Keszharra and saw a pretty dark-haired girl with laughing eyes. Folks looked at Vette and saw a slave. That’s just the way the world worked, especially in Imperial space.

She was pretty sure that’s all Lieutenant Quinn saw when he looked at her: Keszharra’s Twi’lek slave. He had barely acknowledged her existence, treating her like she was little more than a piece of furniture. A piece of furniture that had had the audacity to walk around and stare at his things and okay, it had _kind of_ amused Vette the way he had glared at her while she was looking through his stuff, but honestly she hadn’t started out doing that. (Really truly!) She had just been nosy, and when she caught him staring at her after she looked over the things on his desk the expression on his face had made her want to keep poking around. It had bothered him that she would be so curious, and bothering him was fun, so ...

“Oh!” Vette exclaimed, remembering the holoportrait on Quinn’s desk, “Maybe you shouldn’t go after him. I think he’s married with sproglets.”

“Sproglets?” Keszharra repeated, sounding confused – but not particularly bothered, which definitely bothered Vette. ( _Ew._ “Married” should mean “off-limits.”)

“Yeah, you know, sproglets. _Kids._ Brats.”

“Hmm.” Keszharra sounded thoughtful, then smiled cheerfully at Vette, and Vette’s heart sank a little in her chest. “Challenge accepted.”

O o O o O

Quinn had expected Lord Keszharra to head immediately to the satellite control tower to begin handling her master’s assignment, but instead she appeared to take her time. He had no way of knowing what she was doing since she didn’t consider it necessary to keep him appraised of her comings and goings, but it was several hours before she contacted him from outside the tower to let him know she was heading in. By then it was well past Quinn’s standard dinner and his work schedule had been completely disrupted by him waiting to hear from her.

Not that he complained, of course. At least not out loud. It was a Sith’s prerogative to do as she pleased. He just hoped she didn’t intend to work into the night: he was exhausted and while the worst of his headache had passed he knew the best thing for his own recovery would be a proper night’s sleep. But if she did intend to continue working he would obviously stay up to assist her. Darth Baras would expect no less.

He heard Vette’s voice in his communicator earpiece, commenting about the large number of guns surrounding the satellite control tower, and headed towards his work station to better observe the two women. One of his slicers had tapped into the visual feed from the tower so once the two of them were inside he would be able to observe their progress. In spite of his tiredness he found himself a bit excited by the prospect of observing a Sith in action – he had only ever spoken with Baras and it had been some time since he had last had the pleasure of fighting alongside the Sith. For the most part Balmorra was not the sort of place that drew the dark leaders of the Empire.

Quinn could see the droid security forces inside the tower and knew the instant they became aware of Lord Keszharra’s presence: about half a dozen metal heads all suddenly turned as one towards to the door, which exploded inwards and caught one of the droids in its path. The door and the droid went flying off-camera just as Lord Keszharra strode blithely into the tower, her red lightsabers flashing. Behind her trailed the Twi’lek, blasters in hand, firing off shots as the droids began to advance on them.

The two women worked very well together, Quinn saw. Lord Keszharra took point, charging into the mass of droids and laying about with her twin lightsabers while Vette stood back and fired her blasters. The droids focused on Lord Keszharra, crowding in around her or standing back and shooting at her, but that seemed to be the intention – that the Sith lord would be the focal point of the battle. For the most part the droids were hard-pressed to get a shot in as Lord Keszharra danced and twisted and spun, her lightsabers deflecting blaster fire and often redirecting it back at the shooter before she turned again and drove one of her blades home through metal limbs and torsos. When the dust settled the droids were utterly demolished and to Quinn's complete astonishment both Lord Keszharra and the Twi’lek appeared miraculously uninjured.

Quinn watched the two women head down the hall towards the lift. The databanks were on the second level underground and that, he knew, was their target. When they reached the lift he expected them to wait, but Lord Keszharra barely even slowed down, simply running off the ledge and dropping down the shaft. Quinn’s heart lurched in his chest before he saw her continue her progress – apparently unharmed – on another screen. Vette, for her part, did wait for the lift, but once she was on the second level she hurried to catch up to her master.

The rest of the operation proceeded as planned, with Lord Keszharra taking down the remaining droids before she and Vette approached the banks of data equipment that was to be where the demolitions were to be placed. Quinn watched Lord Keszharra set the charges, then followed their progress as they traced their steps back to the entrance. He noted that she _did_ wait for the lift to take her back up to the main floor; apparently she couldn’t leap that far (unless perhaps she was leaping for a specific target?). Once they were outside he activated the charges and his visual feed was cut off as the tower and its security cameras was destroyed.

Quinn contacted Lord Keszharra on her holocommunicator to follow up. He hoped he was able to keep the amazement out of his voice, but he doubted it. That had been … impressive.

O o O o O

It was close to 2100 hours by the time Lord Keszharra and the Twi’lek returned to Quinn’s office in Sobrik and the lieutenant was working on a report for Darth Baras assessing his apprentice’s performance thus far. He put the datapad down on his desk when he heard the two women approach, turning to greet them with a polite smile that was almost immediately wiped off his face when he saw the shape Lord Keszharra was in.

“My lord!” he exclaimed as Vette helped the Sith lord stagger into his office. Lord Keszharra had one arm slung over the Twi’lek’s shoulders while Vette had a supporting arm linked around the Sith’s waist, the two women leaning heavily on each other. “You should have gone to the med centre –”

Lord Keszharra grimaced, shaking her head, and Vette helped her into one of the chairs surrounding the conference table in Quinn’s office. The look Vette gave Quinn was weighted, but he couldn’t puzzle out what she was trying to tell him.

“I’ll be fine,” Lord Keszharra gasped out, leaning forward in her seat. “Vette can patch me up …”

“She doesn’t like med centres,” Vette told Quinn firmly, her meaningful look intensifying. Something flickered in her lavender eyes, something Quinn couldn’t quite place, and she added, “We just need some supplies. My medkit is pretty much empty.”

Quinn glanced at Lord Keszharra, then back at the Twi’lek, understanding dawning. Was Lord Keszharra … afraid of doctors and med centres? He didn’t dare voice the question out loud. Accusing a Sith lord of being afraid of _anything_ was dangerous to one’s health.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Quinn sighed, then turned and headed into his barracks in search of the necessary medical supplies. All he wanted to do was to curl up in his bed and go to sleep, but his sense of duty and commitment wouldn’t allow him to keep his mouth shut, especially not when Lord Keszharra was obviously in a considerable amount of pain. Besides, if she was injured then she would not be able to complete her tasks on Balmorra, and Quinn simply could not stomach the thought of allowing her to fail Darth Baras in this way. The mere notion was enough to cause his headache to intensify, but he ignored the pain.

“If I might be so presumptuous, my lord, I am a trained combat medic,” he said diffidently, returning to the conference table and setting out his medkit and tools. He found the expression of pleasant surprise on Lord Keszharra’s face to be quite edifying, and that fortified his resolve. “If you will permit me to take a look, I believe I can attend to your injuries here.”

Some of the tension eased out of Lord Keszharra’s body and she nodded slowly, letting her breath out in a slow, controlled sigh. She turned to Vette and gave the Twi’lek a bright, if somewhat weary and pained, smile.

“I’m starving,” she said to the Twi’lek. “Would you be a dear and fetch me something from the cantina?”

Vette blinked, looking startled, but then nodded and glanced at Quinn. “Did you want anything?”

Quinn’s first instinct was to demur, but his stomach chose that opportunity to remind him – and, apparently, the universe at large – that lunch had been quite some time ago, emitting an embarrassingly loud rumble. He ducked his head as embarrassment flooded his cheeks; not for the first time he found himself cursing his naturally pale complexion, which made it all the more obvious whenever he blushed.

“Ah, yes, if you would be so kind …,” he said hesitantly. He wasn’t accustomed to being so polite towards a slave, but instinct led him to follow Lord Keszharra’s lead, and Lord Keszharra had made the order for food into a request – rather as if she was asking Vette to do her a favour, instead of simply commanding her subordinate to obey her. Quinn had a better idea of what sorts of food would be available at the cantina at this late hour, so Lord Keszharra left it to him to suggest something for Vette to pick up for them both. Vette quickly turned and headed out the office door, closing it quietly behind her.

Once the Twi’lek had departed Lord Keszharra slumped further in her seat, seeming to deflate a little.

“Thank you for this,” she said simply, indicating the medical supplies laid out on Quinn’s conference table. “I’m not a fan of med centres, but I wasn’t sure I could take any more of Vette’s guilty looks.”

“Beg pardon, my lord?”

“Oh, this,” and Lord Keszharra motioned towards her back, where Quinn could see singe marks over her dark robes. She shifted slightly and began struggling out of her armour; after a moment’s hesitation Quinn began to help her, easing the robe off her back before letting out a surprised gasp at the state of her breastplate. To his experienced eye it looked like her armour plating had somehow both melted and shattered at the same time, and the result was that her back was almost completely exposed. Beneath the jagged pieces of ruined armour plating Quinn saw that Lord Keszharra’s back was badly burned and cut, with dark bruises covering her skin.

“My lord,” he breathed, hands brushing over the shattered plating, “How did this happen? This shouldn’t have been possible.”

“Oh, I agree, Lieutenant. I’m quite displeased about this. I’ll be writing a sternly-worded letter of complaint to my armourer.” It took Quinn a moment to realize she was teasing him, and she continued, “There was a rather large droid in the Basarin junkyards. It hit me with … some kind of heat ray, I think, and then tried to freeze me. I suppose the combination of super-heating followed by deep-freezing weakened the armour, and it shattered when something shot me. Better my armour than me, I guess.”

Lord Keszharra sighed, unbuckling the fasteners on the sides of the armour. Her movements were slow, hesitant, and after another brief pause Quinn moved to assist her, opening up the sides of her armour and helping her pull the ruined material away from her skin. She wore a bodysuit under her armour but it had done little to protect her, and Quinn could see that the fabric had been melted and shredded somewhat. Both the armour and the bodysuit would need to be replaced; even the best repair job in the galaxy couldn’t restore her gear’s integrity.

Picking up a pair of bandage scissors, Quinn deftly slid the blade in under the edge of Lord Keszharra’s bodysuit, then cut the fabric away from the wounds on her back. Under normal circumstances he would have asked her to strip the shirt off, but he was uncomfortable with the idea of a Sith lord being half-naked in his office and in any event there was no point in trying to salvage the suit. She sat forward on the chair, leaning towards the table and giving him as much access to her exposed back as she could, and Quinn could feel the tension radiating off of her. He wondered how much of that tension came from the pain she was no doubt in, or from something else. He hoped whatever fear she might have of doctors and med centres did not extend to him, but he assumed that if she had been agreeable to him treating her then she likely didn’t see him in the same negative light.

With the armour and bodysuit top out of the way Quinn was able to see what had been done to Lord Keszharra’s back, and while it was bad he was relieved to see that it wasn’t as awful as he had been expecting. He was amazed that she was still capable of functioning, but he knew what _he_ was capable of working through and he could only imagine that a Sith lord such as her would far surpass him in resilience and hardiness. Still, her back was a mess of burns, cuts and bruises, with the worst of it the obvious point of impact from whatever shot had shattered her armour – he could see the way the bruises radiated from that one central point, and how the burns seemed to pattern outwards, giving him a clear picture of what had happened when her armour failed.

“My lord, you should be in a kolto tank,” Quinn commented quietly after he had taken in the full extent of her injuries.

“Skip the lecture, Lieutenant,” she replied, the edge in her voice reminding him of their relative positions. He ducked his head and bit back the sharp retort he would have given almost anyone else – most of the people he treated were his own soldiers, who were accustomed to obeying his commands without question. He certainly couldn’t treat a Sith lord – especially not the Sith lord who was his patron’s own apprentice – in the same manner.

“As you wish, my lord.”

Quinn worked in silence for a few minutes, cleaning the wounds with a sterile pad and discarding the bloody strips in a bowl for later disposal. Lord Keszharra endured the process without comment, tensing occasionally when he touched a particularly sensitive spot but otherwise demonstrating little reaction. He resisted the urge to apologize to her every time he made her tense; her injuries were proof positive that she was tougher by far than he was, and it would be insulting for him to pretend otherwise or attempt to coddle her.

As he worked he couldn’t help but notice the obvious evidence of previous battles marking Lord Keszharra’s flesh. He had enough experience – both firsthand and from treating others – to gauge what had caused the majority of her scars, recognizing the marks of old cuts and burns long since healed. The woman had seen a significant amount of violence in her short life and he marveled at the fact that any one person could have survived all of this.

“You mentioned the Twi’lek was guilty about this?” he asked, by way of distracting her as he worked on stitching one particularly nasty slash closed.

“Mmm, yes,” Lord Keszharra murmured, bowing her head. She spoke around clenched teeth: “The droid was aiming for her, actually. I just got in its way.”

Quinn was silent for a moment, needle flashing in the air as he stitched her skin back together. He tried to picture the Twi’lek getting hit by whatever it was that had destroyed Lord Keszharra’s armour and found it all too easy to imagine what the end result of that would have been. The blue-skinned woman would have been killed for certain. She was incredibly fortunate that the Sith lord had chosen to put herself in harm’s way, but Quinn couldn’t for the life of him understand why Lord Keszharra would have done so. He had seen how skillful the Twi’lek woman was, but surely Darth Baras’s assignment was more important than the life of some slave? How reckless was Lord Keszharra, that she would be willing to risk failing her master by seriously injuring or possibly even killing herself in order to prevent the Twi’lek from being hurt?

“What is it, Lieutenant?” Lord Keszharra asked, and Quinn shook himself, realizing his hands had gone still. “You seem troubled.”

“I …” Quinn paused, uncertain how best to phrase himself. “It’s not my place to question you, my lord, but I find myself wondering why you would choose to jeopardize Darth Baras’s mission over the welfare of your slave.”

Lord Keszharra stiffened under his touch, then turned to glare at him over one shoulder. Her green eyes were dark with anger and Quinn pulled back a little, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“Vette isn’t a slave, Lieutenant.” Lord Keszharra practically snarled the words out, baring her teeth at him. “I appreciate that it would be more … comfortable … for you if she was, but I’m not here to make your life more comfortable.”

She turned away from him again and after a moment Quinn resumed his stitches, his heart thudding painfully in his chest.

“I apologize, my lord,” he said, somewhat stiffly. “I didn’t mean to cause any offense—”

“I know what you meant,” she interrupted him, sounding tired. “Vette isn’t my slave, and I protected her because I have a duty to do so. She wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me. She wouldn’t have been in the line of fire if I hadn’t put her there. I owe it to her to keep her safe.”

Quinn let out the breath he was holding, nodding his head even though she couldn’t see him.

“I understand, my lord.” And he did. The concept of duty was something Quinn understood very well indeed, and it warmed him a little to know that it was something that was important to her, as well, even if he couldn't necessarily understand why she would extend it towards the other woman. He wished he knew the circumstances of how Vette and Lord Keszharra had come to meet, and why the Sith would choose to keep the Twi’lek as part of her entourage if the woman _wasn't_ her slave. Raised as he was to believe that humans and Pureblood Sith were the superior species, it was difficult for Quinn to grasp the loyalty and respect Lord Keszharra seemed to grant her companion.

“Lieutenant.” Her voice had softened, and when she turned again to look at him her expression was hard to read, but he thought he saw sadness in her eyes. “You know what I am. I think you have more experience with the Sith than Vette does, so tell me, what do you think one of _them_ would have done with the knowledge that I’m … I’m afraid of doctors?”

Touched by her admission - that confirmation of what Vette had suggested earlier, what he himself had concluded about Lord Keszharra, Quinn bit his lip, nodding. He closed his sutures and snipped the thread before covering the stitches with a kolto-infused bandage to speed healing. His movements were deft and quick, but he found himself letting his hands linger as they smoothed the bandage over her skin. Her skin was warm – not feverish, exactly, but warmer than his own, and he imagined he could feel the power emanating from her in waves. He couldn’t, of course; he wasn’t the least bit Force sensitive. But he felt … _something._

“Another Sith would try to use that knowledge against you,” he acknowledged, meeting her gaze.

She returned the nod. “Vette just accepts it. She doesn’t ask why, she doesn’t tease me for it, she just covers for me when I need it. Kind of like you did, here.”

“I’m not Sith, my lord,” Quinn replied, as if that were all the explanation she required.

“No,” Lord Keszharra said thoughtfully, looking away again. “You’re not.”

He was saved from further reply by Vette’s return. The Twi’lek waltzed into his office carrying a stack of food containers from the Sunken Sarlacc, which she brought over to the conference table and began setting down a few feet away from Quinn’s medical supplies. He saw her wrinkling her nose in mild revulsion at the bowl filled with bloodied bandages, then caught the way she scanned Lord Keszharra’s back and saw the worried expression on her face.

“How’re you feeling, Kesh?” the Twi’lek asked. Quinn winced at the familiarity of the nickname, but hung his head and pretended to focus himself on his work, not wanting either woman to take him to task again.

Lord Keszharra’s voice was light, almost flirtatious as she asked him, “What’s your prognosis, doctor? Am I going to live?”

“Hardly a doctor, my lord,” Quinn demurred, feeling his cheeks flush a little. “But yes, you should be able to take on the Arms Factory tomorrow after a good night’s rest.”

“And something to eat, boss,” Vette added, opening one of the food containers. Quinn’s stomach let out another embarrassing rumble as the smell of noodles steeped in a rich sauce wafted over to him, and his cheeks burned a bit hotter as Vette giggled.

“I can’t tell if that was you or me, Lieutenant,” Lord Keszharra commented, saving him from further embarrassment. “I’m starving!”

Quinn found himself smiling at her, still blushing, as he reached for one of the containers. It was only then that he realized his headache had gone away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this fanfic comes from the Canadian band The Tea Party and their single "Fire in the Head" off the _Edges of Twilight_ album, because I was a teenager in the '90s and the song makes me think of SW/Quinn. (Of course I'm in that stage where _every_ song reminds me of one fic's pairing or another.)
> 
> Oh, and the droid that nearly kicked Keszharra's ass in the Barasin junkyard is from the Heroic mission "Comrades in Arms." The LS version of that quest has a bonus mission that sees you facing off against a rather large and nasty droid, and when I first did that quest (back when things were a bit harder than they are now) that droid kicked my ass _so many times_.


	3. Frenzy

The next few days were a series of surprises when it came to Darth Baras’s apprentice, from the skill with which she accomplished Baras’s tasks to the way she continued to behave with her not-slave Vette to the flirtatious banter she directed at the very confused Lieutenant Quinn. But the biggest surprise of all (for Quinn, at least) was when Lord Keszharra completed her assignment – and Darth Baras released Quinn from his exile on Balmorra.

The ease with which Baras promoted him back to his captaincy and then granted him leave to seek reassignment caught Quinn off-guard, and he realized almost immediately that this was something his patron could have done at any time. Relief at the tentative restoration of his career warred with anger at the fact that he had lost ten years of his life to Baras’s scheming, but Malavai Quinn was an expert at hiding his thoughts and feelings – especially from himself – and he quickly schooled his expression to one of calm and gratitude as he thanked Baras. If Baras or his apprentice noticed anything amiss, neither commented on it to Quinn, and for her part Vette appeared oblivious to the entire discussion, more interested in the fact that she would be leaving Balmorra soon.

After Lord Keszharra and her companion departed, Baras contacted Quinn again by holocomm, and Quinn saw that his release from exile had more motivating it than just gratitude at a job well done. On the surface of the conversation, Baras was simply looking for someone “more mature and experienced” (his words, not Quinn’s) to provide guidance for his apprentice. Darth Baras attempted to play to Quinn's vanity - such as it was; ten years as an exile on Balmorra had done much to undercut Quinn's own self-appreciation - by praising his years of exemplary service in the Imperial military, his outstanding talents as a medic, pilot and sharpshooter, and his excellent leadership skills. Underneath all that blatant flattery was the unspoken command: that Quinn would join Lord Keszharra’s crew and serve as Baras’s eyes and ears on her ship. Quinn was to go to Baras’s apprentice and beg to be permitted to join her. Failure was not an option.

With Baras, failure was _never_ an option.

Quinn wanted to feel guilty about his new assignment, but the truth of the matter was that he was grateful for an excuse to continue his association with Lord Keszharra. He didn’t know if it was simple gratitude towards her for being the means by which he redeemed himself or if she was just the breath of fresh air he had needed to reawaken his stagnant heart, but the fact was he enjoyed being around her and as he had no immediate prospects after Balmorra (for while Baras might have _said_ that Quinn would be free to seek reassignment wherever he pleased, the reality was that Quinn would go where he was sent, regardless of his own preferences), joining her crew was as good an option as any. Indeed, it was a better option than he could have hoped for, for how better to continue improving his situation than by serving as the right hand of the rising-star apprentice of a powerful Darth?

Fortunately for Quinn, Lord Keszharra was quick to accept him onto her crew. She was flirtatious in her response to him – drawing a feigned exclamation of nausea from Vette – but he could see that she seemed genuinely appreciative of him. After ten years of languishing in obscurity on Balmorra, it was nice to have his skills and his _self_ recognized again. The fact that the person doing the recognizing was an attractive – and immensely powerful! – Sith lord certainly didn’t hurt.

Lord Keszharra had brought Quinn on board her ship – a Fury-class interceptor corvette that he just ached to get his hands on the control of – with instructions to make himself at home, giving him a quick whirlwind tour to help him familiarize himself. Quinn’s lifelong love of spaceships meant that he was quite familiar with the ship’s layout and design, and while he could spot more than a few modifications it nonetheless took him very little time to get acquainted. He was unpacking his – admittedly sparse – gear in the crew quarters when Lord Keszharra came to speak with him.

“Is that your wife and children?” she asked him, as he tucked the holoportrait on the narrow shelf over the bunk he had claimed for himself. Vette’s own bunk was on the other side of the room, hopefully providing enough of a buffer between the two of them. He had had his own private barracks for more than a decade and was slightly uncomfortable with the idea of sharing close quarters with another person, especially when that other person was both female and an alien (and never mind that she was also nearly twenty years his junior – _that_ bit of awkwardness didn’t bear thinking about).

“No, my lord,” Quinn replied, blinking a little in surprise at the faint hint of … was that _jealousy_ in Lord Keszharra’s voice? He picked the holoportrait up and held it out to her, letting her get a closer look at the three faces it contained. “My sister, Elinor, and her children. The boy is Nidal, the infant – she’s two now, but the picture is a bit old – is Sidonie.”

He made no effort to disguise the fondness in his voice. It had been well over a year since he had last seen his sister in person, although they spoke by holocomm from time to time and she had sent him care packages almost every month from the day he set foot on Balmorra. He would need to update her on his transfer as soon as he had a moment to himself; knowing Elinor, she would be delighted and curious, especially about the Sith he had chosen to serve. She had always been graciously appreciative of Darth Baras and everything the Dark Lord had done for her older brother.

“Ah.” Lord Keszharra looked down at the picture, nodding. “Hmm, yes, the woman favours you a little, doesn’t she? As does the boy.” The truth was, Nidal took after his mother, and as a result he bore a strong resemblance to Quinn as a small child, although Nidal’s eyes were brown instead of Quinn’s dark blue. And Nidal had a streak of mischief in him that Quinn himself had never possessed - or, if he had, his father had beaten it out of him at a young age. “And their father?”

“Dead, my lord, more than a year ago. A skirmish in Hutt space.”

“Oh. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Quinn didn’t reply. He hadn’t been terribly close to his brother-in-law, but the man had been a good husband and his sister had been devastated by his death – a death made all the more difficult by the fact that her only living family was stationed on a backwater planet in the middle of a warzone, with no means to aid or comfort her in her time of loss. Darth Baras had pulled strings to grant Quinn leave to attend the funeral and spend a couple of weeks in Kaas City with Elinor and her children, and that had been the last time he had seen them - indeed, it had been the last time he'd even been off-planet. Barrim's funeral followed by two weeks with his bereaved sister and her children could scarcely be considered a vacation, but it was the closest Quinn had come in a decade.

Now that he thought of it, Quinn found it strange that Lord Keszharra hadn’t known of his sister. Darth Baras had obviously been aware, and in fact the Sith lord had made an effort to inquire after her and her little family whenever they spoke. In all likelihood Darth Baras had a rather large file somewhere labelled “Malavai Quinn,” with every detail of his life and history readily available for his immediate use and gratification. It was odd that his patron hadn’t shared that information with his apprentice – was it possible that Darth Baras kept Lord Keszharra in the dark as much as he had kept Quinn?

“Any other family I should know about?” Lord Keszharra asked him, teasing lightly.

Quinn shook his head, unable to respond in kind. His parents had died years ago, and even if they hadn’t … Well, his father had never been a subject Quinn had felt comfortable discussing, and while his mother had been kind in her own way, the fact that she had never stood up to her husband to protect Malavai and Elinor - her _children_ \- had always rankled Quinn. Not for the first time Quinn considered that it was likely for the best he would never have children of his own, given how lacking his own parents had been as role models.

“Are you all right, Captain?” Lord Keszharra’s voice was quiet and filled with concern. It still gave him a slight thrill to hear his title again – especially to hear it fall from her lips.

He gave his head another shake, this time mustering up a small smile.

“I’m fine,” he said, and it wasn’t _quite_ a lie. “It’s just been an eventful day.”

O o O o O

Quinn had expected that Commander Rylon’s death would signal the end of Lord Keszharra’s stay on Balmorra, but he was mistaken. Although her assignment for Darth Baras had been completed, when they were returning from resupplying the ship they were stopped at the gates by one of Darth Lachris’s lackeys, requesting further assistance. As much as Quinn was ready to be gone from Balmorra forever, he had to admire Lord Keszharra’s determination to further the Empire’s goals on the planet – even if he wasn’t entirely sure that she wasn’t doing it as a subtle indication that she didn’t dance to Baras’s tune.

Lord Keszharra sent Vette on to the ship with their newly-acquired supplies, then she and Quinn headed straight away to the Markaran Plains outpost. It was there that Quinn remembered his old love of field work and he was grateful that his time on Balmorra hadn’t been spent solely behind a desk in his office.

It took some time before he and Lord Keszharra found a rhythm working together, partly because he hadn’t yet had the opportunity to be given instruction on what role she wanted him to take. Obviously she was going to be the one taking point – he couldn’t have prevented her from doing so even if he had wanted to, and he very much did not wish to do that – but he wasn’t sure if she expected him to enter into melee with her, or if he was supposed to stand back and shoot. If he was honest with himself Quinn wasn’t entirely certain she even needed him there; the Sith lord was a one-woman wrecking crew and he watched her cut down their enemies as easily as a knife through butter. Gradually, though, he began to get a feel for his place with her, and as he became more comfortable with his role in combat he was soon by her side, blaster in one hand and a kolto probe in the other.

Quinn didn’t know what he enjoyed most: the thrill of field work and combat, the freedom of knowing he was no longer bound to his desk in Sobrik, or simply watching Lord Keszharra in action. The combination was rather exhilarating, and he was relieved to discover that while he was certainly no match for a Sith lord, he still nonetheless excelled at fighting. He hadn’t been lying when he had told Lord Keszharra that he was a crack shot.

Lord Keszharra, of course, was poetry in motion. He had known that already, having witnessed her in action at the satellite control tower, but it was different being in the thick of things. She fought with a matched pair of red lightsabers, dancing around their enemies with a predatory grace that would have looked perfectly at home in a Sith ballet. It was very rare that one of their enemies would land a blow on her; the few times it happened, it happened because she put herself between their enemies and Quinn – not that he was helpless, but because she had decided it was his job to stand back and heal her while it was her job to keep him safe. He remembered their discussion the night she had been injured, about why she had chosen to protect Vette, and he wondered if she had decided that that same protection extended to him. Seeing her in action, the way she intercepted every attack aimed at him, he suspected that this was the case.

Day three saw the two of them working out of the Bugtown outpost, dealing with the Colicoids. Quinn had been aware of the twisted bug-like creatures, but had had limited exposure to them as most of his operations hadn’t taken him much further than outside of Sobrik. He had certainly heard stories about them, though, and stories and urban legends carried home by terrified soldiers did not do the reality justice. The Colicoids were massive, ranging in size from a fully-grown kath hound to bigger than the largest bormu he had seen, and they came in all different types. Some burrowed, some leapt and charged, while others spat acid or attacked with giant pincers. And the fact that they tended to travel in swarms made them all the more terrifying.

There was a large warehouse space northwest of Bugtown that the Resistance had been using as a makeshift medical centre until it was overrun with Colicoids and they were forced to evacuate. Now that the Imperials had reclaimed Bugtown and its surrounding territory, there was a push on to clear out the warehouse, but rumour had it a Jedi had caused some structural damage and as a result there were concerns about the building’s safety. (Because, apparently, structural integrity was a bigger concern than _Colicoid infestation._ Sometimes Quinn had to marvel at how some people – especially some in the higher echelons of command – processed and prioritized information.) Fearing neither cave-ins nor giant flesh-eating insects, Lord Keszharra had volunteered herself for the assignment. Quinn suspected she had agreed to the job simply to shut up the snide officer who had offered it. The man had implied that it would be too dangerous for “such a little Sith,” and Lord Keszharra had accepted the challenge with all the aplomb of a drunken first-year student announcing “Hold my drink!” before leaping off a building.

And so it was that the two of them were breaking into the abandoned medical centre in spite of every cautious instinct in Quinn’s body. The building was dark, the power grid apparently having been compromised by the rumoured Jedi’s attack, and their only light sources came from Lord Keszharra’s lightsabers and the glow wand that Quinn carried. Lord Keszharra had expressed concern over him making himself a target in such a fashion, but he had argued that he could easily swap between his blaster and his kolto probe one-handed, whereas she needed both hands free to fight. Still, he was touched by her concern for his welfare – and more than a little apprehensive about its necessity.

The warehouse-cum-med centre showed every indication that the rumours were true. In addition to obvious signs of Colicoid infestation, Quinn could also see evidence of a fight, as well as damage from some sort of cave-in – _multiple_ cave-ins, in fact, which looked rather as if someone had torn parts of the wall or ground free and then dumped those parts on top of their enemies. Colicoid tunnels and burrows were everywhere in varying stages of collapse, and there were crushed insectoid bodies lying amidst the rubble. No humanoid bodies, however: either the Colicoids had consumed the fallen, or the Resistance fighters had taken them with them when they evacuated. Quinn hoped it was the latter; as much as he may have despised the Resistance and the Republic that backed them, he felt a considerable amount of discomfort at the idea of being devoured, even after death. There was something inherently unsettling about being reduced to so much _meat._

“Mind your step.” Lord Keszharra’s voice called to him from the narrow hallway up ahead, where the red blades of her lightsaber cast strange shadows on the metal walls. Quinn picked his way around scattered bits of rubble, his mind idly cataloguing the few broken things he recognized: a piece of floor or wall paneling, the back of a metal chair, the arm of a probe droid, all partially buried under rock and earth. The floor was cracked, raised or sunken in places, and he would have been cautious even without the Sith lord’s warning. It would be all too easy to stumble and fall in here, and he certainly didn't wish to embarrass himself in front of Lord Keszharra by tripping over his own two feet.

Lord Keszharra paused over a gaping hole in the floor, holding her lightsabers out to provide herself more illumination. After a moment she took a glow wand from her pack, cracked it to create the chemical reaction that caused it to light up, and then tossed it into the hole. Quinn joined her, peering down into the open cavern beneath the warehouse and seeing the glow wand land about twenty feet down, on top of a dead Colicoid. The wand slid down the creature’s chitinous shell and bounced off the ground a few times before coming to rest beside another dead bug. The air wafting up from the pit was warm and acrid, making Quinn’s eyes water, and he saw Lord Keszharra wave a hand in front of her face to push the smell away.

“Could a Jedi have done all this?” Quinn asked, raising his own glow wand and using it to gesture at the destruction around them.

Turning to follow his light, Lord Keszharra nodded, her face barely visible in the red-glow from her blades. “Oh, yes. Easily.”

Quinn swallowed heavily. He had little experience with Jedi, aside from his recent handling of Mashallon, the woman who had been investigating Commander Rylon and Darth Baras on Balmorra. She had certainly seemed simple enough to deal with, but he hadn’t faced her in combat and had only arrived on the scene after Lord Keszharra had already defeated her. He had witnessed Lord Keszharra’s power and was well aware how dangerous Force-users could be, but still, to see the widespread destruction around him and know that it had been caused by one person was incredibly humbling.

“I thought this place was supposed to be crawling with bugs?” Lord Keszharra mused as she stepped over a toppled shelving unit. “So far the only ones we’ve seen have been – _Ah.”_

As if conjured up by her commentary a trio of Colicoids rounded the corner, immediately surging towards the Sith. Quinn took careful aim with his blaster, picking off one of the bugs before it could reach her, while she quickly dealt with the other two, her lightsabers slicing through the air with that familiar buzzing sound.

Within seconds the hallway began to fill with Colicoids, the creatures no doubt drawn by the commotion. They crowded around each other, practically stumbling over one another in their haste to reach the two humans. Lord Keszharra swiftly put herself in front of Quinn, backing him against the wall in order to put her body between him and the oncoming attack, and he saw a blueish light encircle him, faint hexagonal lines wrapping around him as Lord Keszharra’s shield generator switched to cover him instead of her.

“My lord!” he protested, firing off a few shots at one of the larger Colicoids as it rounded on her.

“Just do your job, Captain!” she snapped back, before ducking under one of the creature’s legs and coming up behind it, stabbing her lightsaber through its back. The Colicoid screamed, two of its limbs scrabbling desperately to try to reach the blade that impaled it, and Lord Keszharra drew the lightsaber out again and struck at another bug.

So long as he stayed within a close distance of Lord Keszharra Quinn knew her shield generator would keep him protected, which freed Quinn up to focus on providing her with medical support and the occasional suppressing blaster fire. As much as it bothered him to rely upon another for his protection, Quinn knew that Lord Keszharra was more heavily armoured than he was and that she was by far the better fighter; his talents were better spent as her medic.

One of the Colicoids tore away from Lord Keszharra and bore down on Quinn, forcing him to scrabble backwards to avoid its sweeping forelegs. The creature spat acid at him; a few drops made it past the shield to hit his upflung arm, sizzling across the reinforced fabric of his uniform jacket, and he nearly lost his footing on the rubble as he was forced back a few more steps. He could hear Lord Keszharra shouting, trying to lure the creatures back to her with her Force-enhanced voice, but he was too focused on staying out of the Colicoid’s reach to pay attention to what she was saying. Quinn stumbled back another step as a massive mandible snapped inches from his face. He managed to fire a shot directly into the creature’s open mouth and heard it scream, but his triumphant shout died in his throat as he saw the blue glow from Lord Keszharra’s shield flicker and disappear.

He had moved too far away from her. He was no longer shielded.

Another Colicoid rushed at him, charging into Quinn head-first. Quinn fired off a few quick shots but was too focused on moving out of the way to properly take aim, and so the shots bounced harmlessly off the creature’s chitinous hide. He managed to turn just as the Colicoid struck him, so that the massive head connected with his side rather than full-on to his midsection, and he was sent flying backwards into the wall. He held fast to his blaster pistol but the impact to his left side caused him to lose his grip on his glow wand as his arm went numb from his shoulder to his fingertips, and the wand bounced off the floor at his feet.

“Quinn!” Lord Keszharra’s voice sounded frantic; he didn’t know if it was because she was concerned for him, or if she was in danger herself and needed his aid. He had no means of reaching her.

The ground opened up beneath his feet. Quinn had a brief panicky sensation of falling before something struck him in the head and the world went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ending of this chapter owes itself to three things (outside of my known love of horribly abusing my characters):
> 
> 1\. I'm afraid of insects. Like, terrified (I'm sorry, Vector, but even your Killik buddies creep me out). Colicoids are ginormous insects, and I like to write about the things that scare me, so ...
> 
> 2\. When I first did the bonus series missions on Balmorra (which this "clean up the Resistance med centre" is _not_ actually a part of, although the med centre itself features in the Jedi Knight storyline) I was having graphics issues with my old laptop that caused entire sections to go almost completely dark. I could still see (sort of), but it was like I was running around on a moonless night. It was barely playable, and I had the experience of running my toons through pitch-dark maps which was both terrifying and annoying as hell.
> 
> 3\. I am absolutely _terrible_ at holding aggro, and this, combined with the aforementioned graphics issues, meant my companions kept dying. The things Quinn (in particular) says as he's dying cut me to the quick and I was thoroughly traumatized.
> 
> Toss these three elements together and you have poor Quinn's misadventure here.


	4. Solitaire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Claustrophobia

When Quinn opened his eyes again the world was still dark. For a brief terrifying moment he thought he had been struck blind – he could remember being hit in the head and was afraid the resulting trauma had blinded him – but he quickly realized that his glow wand had been lost and he was trapped in the darkness. He could dimly make out a pale shape in front of him that he thought might be his own hand, inches from his face; he wiggled his fingers and was relieved to discover that he was correct. Beyond that, he could see nothing, not the hole he had fallen through, not the Colicoids he could still hear moving around him, not even the light from Lord Keszharra’s blades.

He tried to call out but found it impossible to draw in a deep enough breath. There was a heavy weight on him and he was unable to move beyond the occasional twitch of his fingers and toes – his left hand more uncooperative – and substantially more _painful_ – than the right. He thought he was lying on his back but in the absence of light and visual markers it was difficult for him to get his bearings.

The air felt very close around him. He could feel his breath against his own skin, as though there was something directly in front of his face, and as he tried to move he realized that he was trapped under a pile of rock and rubble. Had the warehouse caved in on him? Was he buried alive?

Quinn’s heart pounded in his chest. He tried to force himself to calm down, but the idea of being buried under piles of rock and stone and slowly suffocating to death filled him with abject terror, and soon he was struggling desperately to pull himself free of the rubble. His movements accomplished nothing, however, beyond making him even more aware of how much his body hurt – his head and his left arm, in particular, but the weight on his chest was crushing him. He inhaled, intending to make another effort to call out to Lord Keszharra, but the moment he drew in breath the debris on top of him shifted downwards, pinning him even further, and when he exhaled again the weight didn’t move. He attempted to take shorter, shallower breaths after that, although he was perilously close to hyperventilating.

He heard a hissing sound somewhere to his left, a noise that made his skin crawl and his buttocks clench as if trying to flatten the tail his primitive ancestors must once have had. He held his breath, listening intently, trying to determine where the creature was and whether or not it was coming any closer to his resting place. It was almost certainly a Colicoid – more than one, most likely, given that they never seemed to travel singly – and Quinn was just as certainly in no condition to face one on his own.

The weight on top of him shifted slightly as clawed feet scrabbled over the rocks that covered him. Sudden pain flared up in his chest and along his sides, and Quinn couldn’t prevent the groan that escaped his lips. The Colicoid hissed again, drawn to the sound. Its weight, combined with the debris, was slowly crushing Quinn; he was certain he could feel his bones being ground into dust and his organs squashed. The medic in him was calmly assessing the types of injuries one could acquire under these circumstances, while the rest of him was screaming internally that he didn’t want to die like this, alone and buried under the remains of a Resistance medical facility.

_“Quinn!”_

A spark of hope: Lord Keszharra’s voice, muffled by the rubble surrounding him, but close enough that he knew she had to have dropped down into the pit with him. He wanted to call to her but the best he could manage was another pained groan, and even that sounded distressingly weak and feeble to his ears.

There was a familiar buzzing sound followed by a shrill, monstrous shriek as Keszharra’s lightsaber – he couldn’t see it, but he could picture it clearly – connected with the body of the Colicoid over Quinn. Then the weight suddenly lifted as the creature was flung backwards; Quinn tried to suck in a quick breath but the debris shifted, too, and he got a mouthful of dust and small rocks for his trouble. He choked, his airway obstructed, but before he had time to panic something landed on top of him and the sudden intense pain was enough to cause him to lose consciousness again.

O o O o O

On board the _Invictus_ Vette sat up on the bridge, elbows propped up on the console as she gazed blearily at a seemingly endless stream of data. The ship was quiet, Toovee having powered down after completing its regular cleaning patrol, and Vette was contemplating taking a nap.

She was glad to be stuck on the ship instead of racing around Balmorra with Lord Keszharra and Captain Tightass but she was ready for a change of scenery. Vette knew better than to wander around the spaceport without her Sith-y companion – an unattended Twi’lek was bound to draw unwanted attention, and she did not want to have to explain that _no,_ she wasn’t a slave, and _no,_ her master _wasn’t_ with her right now, and _no,_ she did _not_ want to head into the Sunken Sarlacc for just a few drinks, thank you _very_ much. Vette sighed explosively, wishing not for the first time that Kesh hadn’t gone off to help Captain Stick-up-his-ass conquer Balmorra for the Empire.

Lord Keszharra had given Vette her marching orders, which had been to simply stay on the ship, out of sight (and out of harm), and to use Keszharra’s HoloNet access to search Imperial records for information on their newest crew member. As much as Kesh appeared to appreciate Captain Quinn’s various attributes – which, in Vette’s mind, weren’t _nearly_ as appealing as Kesh seemed to think they were – she was still very mindful of the fact that Darth Baras had put the man in her sights for a reason, and Sith being Sith Lord Keszharra was naturally incredibly suspicious.

_“Of course he’s a spy, Vette!” Lord Keszharra had said when she first asked Vette to check the Captain’s records, laughing at the notion that Captain Quinn could possibly be anything else. “Baras as much as said that Quinn owes his career to him. I would be a fool to trust that his decision to join my crew was purely his own initiative.”_

_“Why did you say yes to Quinn joining your crew if you knew he was just a spy for Baras?” Vette had asked, already bringing up the prompts for accessing the HoloNet. “Why not just laugh in his face and leave him on Balmorra?”_

_Kesh had made a face. “Well, for one thing that would have been_ terribly _rude. For another … Vette, you’ve seen what becomes of people Baras has no further use for. If Quinn had failed to gain access to me and my crew, you know what Baras would do to him. He’d be lucky if he spent the next thirty years here on Balmorra – in all likelihood, Baras would have sent another of his assassin-apprentices to kill him, or ordered me to do it.”_

_“Would you have? Killed Captain Tightass, I mean?”_

_“Of course not. I said yes to him joining us, didn’t I?” Kesh had looked troubled. “Baras is a fool to throw away good people the way he does. Quinn might be spying for him – or he might not be, I don’t know – but that’s no reason to leave him to Baras’s less than tender mercies. And he_ was _useful to me; I couldn’t have succeeded here on Balmorra without him. I expect he’ll continue to be useful, even if I can’t trust him entirely.”_

_“Is that what you think I am, my lord?” Vette had asked, after a moment’s hesitation. For some reason she found the notion troubling, and not just because of the obviously shortened lifespan of anyone caught spying on the Sith. “Another spy for Baras?”_

_That time Lord Keszharra had laughed, although it was not unkind._

_“Vette, I don’t think Baras has given you more than a second’s consideration,” she had admitted, with a small smile to take the sting out of the words. “He gave you to me as an afterthought – ‘Here, apprentice, take this slave as a token of my appreciation!’” She had snorted. “He probably doesn’t even remember your name or the colour of your skin. But I know that if I had left you on Korriban, he would have killed you, too – just in case someone else thought to use you against him. Baras doesn’t like loose ends.”_

_“So … basically …” Vette’s voice had been faintly teasing. “Captain Tightass and I are alive because you’re a big softie!”_

_“Vette! You can’t tell people that!” Kesh had laughed again, but then her voice took on a serious note, and she had given Vette a long, level stare. “Truly, though, Vette: you_ can’t _tell people that. It’s one thing for us to laugh about here, in the privacy of my ship, but out there? Where people can hear you? The last thing I need is for anyone to think I’m soft or weak.”_

_“Of course, my lord.” Vette had still been teasing, but the look she had given the Sith showed that she understood what Keszharra was saying. “Your secret is safe with me, you cuddly Dark Lord of the Sith, you.”_

_“Thank you, Vette,” Keszharra had replied, shaking her head in bemusement._

_“No, my lord.” This time Vette was all seriousness. “Thank_ you.”

If she was being honest with herself, Vette had assumed that Captain Stick-in-the-mud’s records would be every bit as starched and boring as the man himself. The man probably slept and bathed in his Imperial uniform, for crying out loud, and he clearly wouldn’t have recognized a good time if it had walked up and slapped him on the ass. But instead of boring military transcripts and an endless succession of A-plus-plus report cards from the finest finishing schools in the galaxy, Vette had discovered that the Captain’s records were actually … kind of disturbing. Not disturbing in the “secretly a serial killer” sense – wouldn’t _that_ have been something? – but rather in the sense that Captain Quinn was a man with history … and quite a lot of that history was sad and kind of … tragic.

Childhood records indicated an unhappy home life – definitely the kind of thing Vette could relate to, although her experiences were vastly different from his. Vette was by no means a medical expert, but she knew enough to be able to read between the lines on various doctors’ reports and knew what repeated head and upper body trauma typically indicated when the patient was just a little kid. Especially when all those injuries just plain stopped after little Malavai Quinn was shipped off to boarding school – far, far away from his father, who the records described as being a hard, aggressive man. Vette had a surprisingly easy time picturing Captain Tightass as a child: she just pictured the little boy from Quinn’s holoportrait, only with sad blue eyes instead of mischievous brown ones. And picturing that - imagining Quinn as a child - made her feel surprisingly sympathetic towards him, especially in light of what she now knew about him. He stopped being a starched, boring Imperial officer with a stick up his ass and started being a person.

She had skimmed over his school records, unsurprised to discover that the man had excelled academically. Vette had already known he was smart, and even after their short time together she had been able to pick up on the fact that he wasn’t satisfied with anything less than his best. That would have served him well in school, she suspected – not that she knew anything about formal education, but still. Military school, officer’s training … boring, boring, _boring_ and utterly predictable.

His early military career was also dull as far as Vette was concerned, and would likely hold little interest for Kesh as well – it was obvious that Captain Tightass was a career military man and he had the expected commendations and awards to show it. His father might have been an abusive asshole (assuming Vette was reading Quinn's medical history accurately), but little Malavai looked to have been following in Colonel Rymar Quinn's footsteps. But then about ten years ago Quinn's upward mobility took a sudden and abrupt downward turn following something called the “Battle of Druckenwell.”

The battle itself didn’t interest Vette aside from the realization that at the same time she was a child working in the mines on Ryloth, Captain Quinn was already a man grown and making choices that would drastically alter the course of his life. She had known Quinn was older than her and Keszharra, but she hadn’t really considered what that would mean. He had been trapped on Balmorra for almost half of Vette’s life. That was _crazy._

Still. Vette made careful note of the details surrounding Captain Tightass’s demotion and court-martialling, knowing that this was the sort of information Kesh was looking for. This, _this_ was the stuff that stood out, that made the stuffy Imperial soldier seem more like a real person to Vette. His decision to disobey a Moff seemed horribly out of character for the man Vette thought she had met, and she filed that away with the sad details of his childhood and the happy, smiling picture of his family and the model spaceship she had seen in his office, both which now sat on the shelf beside his bunk.

Finally her perusal of the proceedings surrounding Captain Quinn’s court martial led to a selection of holorecordings, and that was where Vette had paused. The recordings came bearing the ominous title of _Quinn, M.: Interrogation v.1_ and the only details listed were the date and time – a little over ten years ago, in the weeks following the aforementioned Battle of Druckenwell. Vette had spent enough time in Imperial space and in the presence of Darth Baras – and herself in an Imperial prison, no less – to know exactly what “interrogation” meant in this context. She didn’t particularly like Captain Tightass, but she didn’t _not_ like him so much that she felt like watching him being tortured.

And _honestly,_ what kind of sicko recorded that sort of thing?

Scratch that – Vette could picture Darth Baras recording his “interrogation” sessions and watching them later on, possibly with a bowl of popcorn and the lights turned down low for _ambience._

Vette shuddered.

The more important question as far as Vette was concerned was whether or not Lord Keszharra would want to see the recordings. Vette would like to think that the woman who balked at the idea of turning down someone’s offer of service because it might result in that person’s hardship or death would also be the same woman who would find it abhorrent to watch a man being tortured … but Vette couldn’t be certain. Kesh was Sith, and while she might sometimes do incredibly nice things – like removing shock collars and telling a Dark Lord of the Sith that his dead son wasn’t a _complete_ failure as an acolyte – she still sometimes did some incredibly … not so nice things. And Vette had seen Kesh ordering a man to be tortured until he confessed, mere minutes after she had murdered another man in cold blood simply for being incompetent. Vette liked Lord Keszharra, but she had to acknowledge that Kesh was by no means a nice or good person.

Slowly, reluctantly, Vette pulled the recordings and added them to the collection of information she intended to give Lord Keszharra when she returned from Operation: Kill All the Things. She put little baby Malavai’s medical records on top of the pile in the hopes that Kesh wouldn’t be interested in seeing an abused little boy as a tortured adult, then sat back in her chair and put her feet up on the console.

Vette was about to see if she could get comfy enough to take a nap on the bridge when the holocomm started beeping. Her feet hit the floor as she slapped the button to accept the call.

Kesh’s face projected in front of Vette, blue and glowing and faintly indistinct. It took Vette all of two seconds to notice the bloody gash across Kesh’s forehead and the worried expression on her face.

“Hey boss, what’s up?”

_“Vette, how quickly can you get to –”_ Lord Keszharra turned away, speaking in an undertone to someone off-screen _“—the Bugtown med centre? Quinn’s been hurt.”_

O o O o O

He was suffocating, the world around him dark and warm. Every breath he tried to take caused thick liquid to fill his lungs and although he struggled his movements were slow and languid. He was trapped, unable to free himself, unable to even get a sense of up or down or left or right.

His hand came into contact with something hard and smooth, contoured around him like a shell. He tried to push the thing away but instead found himself being propelled backwards slightly until his back bumped against the same smooth surface. His feet were bare and when they touched the bottom he was able to push himself upwards, as if he was deep underwater.

Moving his hands around he soon realized that the space that contained him was very small, very tight, and sudden panic overtook him at the discovery. The walls – whatever the walls were – were too close, he was trapped, he couldn’t break free …

Somewhere in the distance an alarm sounded. It was oddly muted, as if he was hearing it through water. The alarm seemed familiar – it was something he had heard before, but he couldn’t place it, and its discordant noise just added to his overwhelming sense of terror.

His panic intensified, as did the urgency of the alarm. He tried to strike at the shell surrounding him but his arms wouldn’t cooperate and when he tried to scream no sound came out.

There was a loud crack and then a rushing sensation. He tumbled face-forward onto the ground and knew no more.

O o O o O

It was the soft sound of whispered voices that drew Quinn out of unconsciousness. He recognized Lord Keszharra’s voice in hushed conversation with her Twi’lek, Vette, but it took him a few seconds before he could open his eyes and confirm that it was indeed them. Once his eyes were opened, however, it was his surroundings that immediately caught his attention.

In Quinn’s experience one Imperial med centre was much like any other, and this was no exception: standard-issue gurneys, the neat shelves of medical equipment and supplies, the droid monitoring his life signs. The only thing that was absent was the kolto tank, which Quinn suspected was what was under an oddly-shaped tarp over in the corner. The room smelled strongly of kolto, and not just from the bandages covering him – the scent permeated everything, suggesting that a significant amount of kolto had been used. On him? He wondered. Had he been that badly injured?

“Hey, you’re awake!” the Twi’lek announced cheerfully, her attention immediately focused on him. Vette came to hover over his bed, peering down at him with anxious lavender eyes. She called over her shoulder, “Hey boss, he’s awake!” Then, glancing down at him again, she asked, “How’re you feeling, Captain Tightass?”

Quinn frowned, as much at her insolence as at the question. How _did_ he feel? Sore – very, _very_ sore, but also absurdly grateful to be alive. His entire body ached from the throbbing, dull pain at his temple to the sharp pressure of his chest all the way to the numb pangs of his left arm and down to his toes. He felt rather as though there wasn’t a single part of him that didn’t hurt, and yet at the same time all that pain served as a vibrant reminder of the fact that he was still breathing. That fact seemed immensely important at present, given how unlikely it was.

He tried shifting into a sitting position but found he had neither the strength nor the coordination for even so simple a task. Before he could say anything, however, a strong, slender arm slid behind his back and eased him upwards, and he felt the bed adjusting to accommodate his new position.

“Easy, Captain,” Lord Keszharra breathed in his ear, pulling away only once she was certain he was comfortably settled. She took a few steps back, looking suddenly uncomfortable.

Quinn noticed the butterfly bandage on her temple and a dark bruise on her cheek. Her left hand was also bandaged; she held it cradled against her chest.

“My lord, you’re hurt!” he exclaimed, only to grimace at the sudden tightness in his chest. His voice sounded ragged and breathless, and he began to notice that it hurt to breathe – more so, to speak.

Lord Keszharra let out an inelegant snort and rolled her eyes. “I’m fine. _You’re_ the one who’s hurt, Captain.” She directed the next to Vette: “Keep him company. I’m going to finish up here.” Before Quinn could protest she hurried out the door, her dark robes swishing behind her.

Quinn set his mouth in a hard line and turned away, staring at the oddly-shaped tarp in the corner until he felt he had his emotions under control again. Vette appeared to give him a moment of privacy, fiddling with some items on the counter before easing down into the chair beside his gurney. When he finally turned back to her she was looking away, pretending to study her fingernails.

“She’s been here the whole time you were out,” she said, apologizing for Lord Keszharra’s abrupt departure. “She doesn’t like –” she shrugged and motioned around herself, her gesture taking in the gurneys, the medical equipment, all of it “—this sort of thing.”

_Med centres. Right,_ Quinn thought, closing his eyes and sinking back against his pillow with a nod.

“What happened?” he asked, the words coming out in a whisper around his damaged throat.

Vette let out a small sigh, then asked, “How much do you remember?”

“Colicoids,” he said shortly. Obviously there was more – so much more – but he didn’t want to talk about it. It hurt to talk, but more than that, it hurt to think about what had happened - what had _nearly_ happened. He wanted Vette to tell him how he had gotten from a pit under the warehouse to here – wherever _here_ was. Had Lord Keszharra pulled him out? How had _she_ gotten out? And how long had he been unconscious?

“Yeah.” Vette sighed again and shifted in her seat. He opened his eyes to see her watching him, her expression one of sympathy. “Kesh brought you in. I think she called for a med evac but decided it was too slow and just … Y’know, brought you herself. You were in rough shape. I don’t know the details – I only just got here from the ship – but I guess it was bad enough that you needed to be in the kolto tank?”

“What … what tank?”

Vette turned slightly, jerking her chin at the tarp-covered piece of equipment in the corner. He had been right – it _was_ a kolto tank. But why was it covered? Had it malfunctioned?

“You really don’t remember?” she asked, and he started to shake his head only to wince when even that slight motion caused him pain. “Um … okay. Well, the doctors put you in the tank, right?” He managed a very, very tiny nod. “But I guess you … um … you woke up a bit? And you were kind of … panicking?”

Quinn had vague flashes of memory – the sensation of being trapped, weightless, suspended in warmth and darkness. Along with those memories came the sudden flare of panic as he remembered being confined in a too-small space, unable to escape, his hands beating ineffectually against the smooth walls of his cage. The droid, alerted by his elevated heartrate, hurried over to his side, already preparing a syringe of what was most likely some kind of sedative. Quinn waved it off and drew in a slow, shallow breath, trying to calm himself down.

“Yeah, like that,” Vette said, sounding apologetic again. She reached out and took his right hand; surprised – he couldn’t remember the last time anyone had touched him in any familiar or comforting manner – Quinn let her.

“The … the tank,” he managed, after a moment’s hesitation. “It was … it was too small. Too confining.”

“I didn’t know you were claustrophobic.”

“I’m not.” Quinn blinked, then re-evaluated that assessment as thoughts of being buried under tons of rubble and surrounded by oversized insects filled his mind. “I … wasn’t.”

“Well.” Vette squeezed his hand. Her skin was warm and soft, although he could feel callouses on her palm from where a blaster would fit. It was strange to be touched by someone; stranger still for that touch to be comforting - and for it to come from an alien. “Anyway … You kinda panicked, and the doctors were taking too long to get you out, so Kesh –”

“Lord Keszharra,” he corrected softly.

“Yeah, Kesh. She smashed the tank and …” Vette shrugged eloquently, the gesture once again encompassing the room around them. Quinn suddenly remembered the bandage on Lord Keszharra’s hand and realized she had likely injured herself breaking the transparisteel on the tank. Had she punched the kolto tank? Was she really that strong?

“Where has she gone now?” Quinn was finding it easier to speak, although his voice still sounded dreadful: too hoarse, with an oddly breathless quality that made him seem uncertain and weak to his ears.

“Who, Kesh?” Vette shrugged again. “She’s gone off to finish conquering Balmorra, I think. Some high mucky-muck contacted her while you were out, but she didn’t want to leave until you woke up.”

“She’s gone off on her own?”

Vette gave Quinn a look that very clearly said he was being an idiot, and he fell silent, leaning back against the pillows and glaring up at the ceiling overhead. On the one hand he knew he was being absurd, that Lord Keszharra clearly didn’t need his assistance – in fact, if anything, he had held her back, and the only reasonable thing he could do would be to immediately resign from her post and seek assignment elsewhere. He should be relieved that she was able to continue her duties without him. On the other hand, his sense of duty warred within him: he should be out there with her, guarding her back, patching her up when necessary. He had sworn to serve her. He had sworn an oath to Darth Baras, as well.

“How far have I set her back?” he asked finally, looking at the Twi’lek again.

“Set her back?” Vette seemed confused, her lekku twitching restlessly.

“Yes, in her work,” he insisted.

“You … haven’t? I mean, Kesh kinda just … sets her own schedule, I guess. The mucky-muck wanted her to leave earlier, but she just gave him a _look_ and he left, so … I don’t think you’ve set her back at all. She wanted to be here.”

Quinn felt a pang and turned his head away from Vette, pressing his lips together in a hard line. He was strangely touched that Lord Keszharra would feel obligated to stand vigil over him, but it was hardly a good use of her time. No doubt Darth Baras would be impatient for her to continue his work; Quinn was surprised she had lingered on Balmorra as long as she had, and now this latest setback? Even if Vette didn’t consider it a setback, Quinn knew he had wasted too much of his lord’s time with this convalescence.

Releasing Vette’s hand, Quinn motioned for the droid to join them, then asked for the record of his treatment. The droid initially refused, giving some canned statement about the records being for professional use only, but Quinn gave it his rank and personnel codes and within seconds it was transferring the information onto a datapad for him to read at his leisure. Vette went back to studying her fingernails and looking uncomfortable as Quinn studied the report on his datapad.

He was tired – beyond tired, he was _exhausted,_ and the words on the pad blurred before his eyes, causing him to require multiple passes before he could make sense of what he was reading. He read with a sense of clinical detachment, connecting the medical jargon with the myriad aches and pains in his body and what he remembered happening back in the pit. None of it came as any real surprise – damage to his respiratory system from inhaling corrosive gas, broken bones in his left arm, cracked and fractured ribs, various contusions and lacerations – until he got to the notation _Pt RES at scene._ It took his addled wits a moment or two to parse the meaning behind that annotation.

_… Pt RES at scene ..._

_… patient resuscitated at scene …_

Quinn felt a chill sweep over him, and he brought his good hand up, running his fingers over his chest. Now that he was looking for it he could feel the bruising and tenderness there; he had assumed the pain was the result of being crushed, but chest compressions – especially as done by a woman with well above-average strength – could certainly cause those kind of injuries.

“Hey.” Vette’s voice was soft and full of concern. “You okay?”

He lowered the datapad onto his lap, unwilling to read any further. “My heart stopped. My … I wasn’t … I wasn’t breathing. Lord Kes- Lord … L-lord …”

The room spun; he would have fallen if he hadn’t already been lying down. It was suddenly hard to breathe and he could hear the alarms going off as the various devices monitoring his bio-signs began to signify that he was in a state of distress. The droid rushed back to his side and Quinn felt a sharp jab in his arm, followed by a spreading warmth that trickled outwards from the injection site. Then, nothingness.


	5. Settling In

Lord Keszharra arranged for Captain Quinn to be transferred to her ship, the _Invictus,_ later on that afternoon. The doctors at the Imperial medical centre had been unwilling to clear him for duty but the Sith had informed them that she and her crew would be travelling off-world immediately and would not be seeing action for several days. As such, Quinn’s duties would be minimal, but she had no intention of remaining on Balmorra any longer. She had made this declaration within earshot of Quinn and her meaning had been clear enough to him: either he follow the doctors’ instructions and stay in the med centre for a few more days or he discharge himself (against medical advice) and accompany Lord Keszharra. She would not be waiting for him.

It was an easy enough decision for Quinn to make. The thought of choosing to stay behind and miss out on this opportunity was enough to set his head to throbbing with a stress-induced headache that only diminished when he stepped foot on board the _Invictus._

Until his abrupt transfer Quinn had spent the remainder of his time on Balmorra sleeping in the med centre, swaddled in kolto-infused bandages. The doctors had wanted him to go back into the kolto tank – a replacement for the damaged one having mysteriously arrived sometime while he was unconscious – but the thought of being trapped in such a tight space made his breath come fast and his heart pound so loudly in his chest that he was certain everyone in the centre could hear it. It had been Vette who had suggested the kolto bandages, wrapping him up like a mummy, and he had felt an absurd degree of gratitude towards the blue-skinned Twi’lek for her idea. When he was unwrapped later on that day he wasn’t completely healed, but he felt significantly better and was able to walk onto the ship more or less under his own power.

Once on board the _Invictus_ Quinn had made a beeline for the bridge only to be turned away by Lord Keszharra, who informed him that Vette was taking the first shift at the helm. She suggested – in a wry tone of voice that implied it was more of an order than a suggestion – that he avail himself of the ship’s refresher. As much as it troubled Quinn to leave an untrained and largely unknown Twi’lek in charge of one of the most versatile and powerful personal starships in the Imperial fleet, he couldn’t deny the fact that it had been several days since his last wash and he was rather tired of smelling like sweat, blood and kolto.

He quickly discovered that one of the perks of serving a Sith lord was that the refreshers on her ship came fully loaded with water instead of sonic showers, even in the crew ‘fresher. After days of going without much in the way of cleansing the hot water felt practically decadent, and he luxuriated in the wondrous joy of feeling _clean_ again. That first shower after a period of convalescence always felt magical, and this was no different. The water pressure was quite pleasant as well; the combination of heat and pressure helped to ease some of the tension from his body. Quinn was pleased to discover that his hands only shook a small amount while he was shaving – scraping away the scruffy beginnings of a beard added to his feeling of satisfaction – and with care and diligence he managed to completely avoid nicking himself.

Post-shower Quinn spent some time touring the ship, acquainting himself with its various nooks and crannies. He was already familiar with the layout, having somewhat obsessively poured over maps and blueprints and toy models as a child, but there were a number of modifications to the _Invictus_ that he took some enjoyment in discovering. The galley, for one, was larger than the standard design, with more storage and better appliances, suggesting that someone on board took pleasure in cooking. Likewise the medbay had been the recipient of a makeover, and rather than the standard cold, sterile facility Quinn was accustomed to seeing the small room seemed downright cozy, although none of the modifications would interfere in any way with the proper utilization of the space. He suspected that the medbay’s redesign had more to do with the Sith lord’s discomfort with doctors and med centres than a genuine design for renovation and redecoration, however.

It didn’t take him all that long to familiarize himself with the _Invictus_ – it was not _that_ large a ship – and Quinn briefly entertained the idea of taking a nap before just as quickly discarding the notion. While he might have been under doctor’s orders to take it easy and he wasn’t strictly on the clock at present, he was too much of a professional to waste his time being so idle. Rather than linger in the crew quarters Quinn found himself heading for the bridge, where Vette sat in one of the co-pilot’s seats listening to music. She greeted him with a surprised “Oh, hey, Cap’n!” before he offered, somewhat awkwardly, to take over at the helm, an offer which she gladly accepted, scampering off to do Emperor knew what.

Alone on the bridge, Quinn allowed himself to admire the efficiently laid-out controls before settling down in the chair Vette had vacated. The ship was already set to auto-pilot, on course for Nar Shaddaa, and Quinn was able to sit down and relax while still feeling as though he was taking responsibility for something. As he sat and gazed out at the starry space ahead of them a deep feeling of satisfaction came over him. Never mind the pain and terror of the last few days, or the aches and anxiety he still felt now: this, here at the helm of the _Invictus,_ in the service of a woman who had the potential to reshape the galaxy … _this_ was where he belonged.

After ten years on Balmorra, his military career effectively over, this newfound freedom and hope for the future was almost staggering in its enormity.

“Mind if I join you?”

Quinn started at the sound of Lord Keszharra’s voice. Before he could answer – as if he could refuse her access to the bridge of her own ship! – she came and sat down beside him in the captain’s chair. He was somewhat surprised by her casual attire although the more rational part of him reasoned that of course she wouldn’t be wearing her armour on board the _Invictus;_ still, it was strange to see Lord Keszharra clad in nothing more than a well-worn pair of breeches and a loose-fitting shirt, the sleeves cut off to leave her muscled arms bare. Red tattoos, similar in design to the markings he had seen on other Sith, encircled her upper arms, and he wondered if they held any particular significance.

Lord Keszharra leaned back in the chair, drawing her feet up onto the seat and wrapping her arms around her knees, hugging them close. She stared out the viewport much as Quinn had done earlier, enabling him to study her without her taking note of it. She seemed quite relaxed, sitting with an ease he had not seen in her before, and he surmised that space travel appeared to have the same calming effect on her that it had on him.

She was remarkably attractive, he mused, taking note of her round, cheerful face and lightly tanned skin. The red tattoos on her arms stood out in stark contrast, but rather than finding them somewhat savage in appearance, as he had when seeing them on other Sith, they seemed to enhance her beauty and lent her an almost fey air. Even the burn scar on her left cheek – clearly visible to him, as he sat on her left – seemed to highlight, rather than detract from, her attractiveness. Her sleek black hair was piled on top of her head in a careless knot, loose strands having escaped the bun to fall about her face, and in the light from the viewport her dark green eyes shone with faint amusement. He wondered if it was gratitude towards her – for saving his life, for rescuing his career, for getting him off of Balmorra – or something more that made him feel so drawn to her.

“How are you feeling?” she asked him, after the silence had stretched out between them for a few minutes. She hadn’t turned to look at him, her gaze still fixed on the viewport ahead, but he felt the weight of her regard.

“Much improved, my lord,” Quinn answered, and it wasn’t entirely a lie – he _did_ feel better. He was very tired and continued to ache all over, but compared to how he had felt upon waking up in the med centre it was a vast improvement. He wouldn’t be winning any boxing matches, but he didn’t think he was liable to fall over any time soon, either, and he felt comfortable with his decision to check himself out of the med centre early. He looked down at the console, suddenly uncomfortable, then glanced back at her and forced himself to continue, “My lord, I need to apologize for the other day.”

“Whatever for?” Now Lord Keszharra _was_ looking at him, her expression one of outright confusion.

“For my weakness interfering with your duties on Balmorra,” he replied quickly, lowering his gaze again. He could feel his cheeks flushing as embarrassment and shame filled him. “I caused you to waste time you couldn’t afford to –”

“Quinn.” Lord Keszharra’s voice was firm, and he forced himself to meet her gaze. “Stop apologizing. If anything, that entire situation was _my_ fault, not yours. I’m the one who should be apologizing to you.”

“My lord?”

She let out an explosive sigh and dropped her feet to the floor, using the tip of her toes to twist her chair so that she was facing him directly. The confusion on her face had shifted to earnestness.

“Captain, you might perhaps have noticed that I’m not accustomed to leadership?”

Quinn was tempted to prevaricate, to offer up some bit of flattery about her peerless leadership skills, but sensed that she wouldn’t appreciate his efforts. His experience with Sith had led him to conclude that they generally favoured such inane adulation, but his instincts warned him against resorting to such measures with Lord Keszharra. Instead, he nodded slowly and said cautiously, “Indeed, I had noticed, my lord.”

“I’m not used to working as part of a team,” Lord Keszharra continued, as if he hadn’t spoken, “much less being in charge of one. That’s not how they focused my training at the Sith Academy. You’re not encouraged to … to trust others, or to work with others for more than a brief period of time. Allies can be … tenuous, at best. Everyone just waiting for the next opportunity to stab you in the back.”

_Often literally,_ Quinn mused, but kept the thought to himself. He nodded again, sensing she didn’t really require his input to continue.

“I know what I’m capable of and what risks I’m willing to take.” Lord Keszharra grimaced, an expression of chagrin on her face. “And so I let that … that _idiot_ goad me into cleaning out the Resistance base, because I wanted to put him in his place and show him what a Sith was capable of. He said it would be dangerous and I just saw it as a challenge. It didn’t even occur to me that I wouldn’t be the only one taking the risks in there, not until I turned around and realized you were gone.”

Now it was Quinn’s turn to grimace, remembering all too easily the shock of waking up alone in the darkness, buried under a pile of rubble. Lord Keszharra gave him a sympathetic smile, leaning across the console to rest one hand lightly on his arm. Although he knew the fabric of his uniform was too thick for him to be able to feel her, he still had the fleeting impression of warmth from her touch.

“You were hurt – you almost died – and it was because of me.” She squeezed his arm. “I’m very sorry for that, Captain.”

“You saved me,” he replied, staring down at her hand.

“I’m so used to dealing with other Sith that I forget how … how _soft_ regular people are.” He stiffened slightly, insulted by her wording, but she released his arm and instead her fingertips came to brush over his chest, where the contusions from her efforts to resuscitate him had only just begun to fade. “I remember the sound of your ribs breaking. I knew it might happen – they warn you about it, when teaching you how to … to do that. But still, it was an awful sound. I was sure I was going to kill you instead of –”

_“You saved me,”_ Quinn interrupted her forcefully, proud of how strong his voice sounded. He could feel the panic rearing its ugly head again at this frank discussion of her efforts to resuscitate him; he did not want to think about how close he had come to death, or what it had taken for her to bring him back. Still, he needed for her to understand his immense gratitude – she _had_ saved him, and in thinking about it, Quinn was forced to acknowledge that he couldn’t remember a time when someone else had made such an effort. Certainly not in the wake of Moff Broysc’s fury at Quinn’s interference during the Battle of Druckenwell, and not even before then, in all the years prior to that. Stars, even his own mother hadn’t –

_No,_ he thought, shutting down that line of thought. _It doesn’t bear thinking about now._

Oblivious to his inner turmoil, Lord Keszharra let her hand drop, then tossed him a surprisingly flirtatious smile. The humour in it didn’t quite reach her eyes, but her voice was filled with it – humour and amusement and a painfully obvious attempt at levity. He was reminded again, rather forcibly, of how young she was, and it occurred to him that she must find these circumstances as odd and awkward as he did. Sith were not generally known for _saving_ others; it seemed strange to him that she would even have bothered to learn the techniques involved in artificial resuscitation.

“I’ll be honest, Captain, that wasn’t quite how I had pictured our first kiss going,” Lord Keszharra teased, still gamely striving for flippancy.

“Oh?” He tried to match her levity even as he felt his cheeks burn. “I wasn’t aware you had pictured our first kiss, my lord.”

“Mmhmm, among many other such firsts,” she replied, pulling away. Her expression sobered again and she added, “Captain, when you joined my crew you pledged yourself to me.”

“I … Yes?” Quinn wasn’t quite certain where this was leading, and was wrongfooted by her abrupt change in topic. “I recall this, my lord.”

“Did it not occur to you that I might consider that pledge to be a two-way street? That, in accepting your oath, I was likewise taking responsibility for you and your safety?” Her tone was serious, her green eyes searching his face.

“I had not … considered it that way, my lord, no,” he replied cautiously. “I had not meant to … bind you in such a fashion, my lord.”

Lord Keszharra sank back in her seat, folding her arms across her chest.

“I am not Darth Baras, to discard someone the moment I tire of them,” she said, and the irritation and – dare he say? – anger in her voice caught Quinn by surprise. “I take my oaths and obligations seriously, Captain Quinn. You swore yourself to me and to my service, and in accepting your pledge, I accepted the responsibility of that devotion. I was careless of your safety, back on Balmorra. I’m sorry for that. I won’t let it happen again. You’re under my protection, Quinn.”

Quinn’s mind reeled and he had to lower his gaze, unable to bear her close scrutiny any further. He wasn’t accustomed to anyone else taking an interest in him or his welfare, much less promising him their protection. Furthermore, it amazed him that the person offering him her protection was so very obviously capable of following through on that promise: Quinn had seen some of the things Lord Keszharra was capable of and had heard of others. He had been forced to re-evaluate her potency as a Sith, back when she had first begun completing Darth Baras’s tasks on Balmorra. Since that time he had needed to re-evaluate her again and again, until he began to suspect there might not be a limit on what Lord Keszharra could accomplish, should she put her mind to it. That someone such as her should take an interest in his welfare … it was mind-boggling.

Searching for a change in subject Quinn latched onto the first thing that sprang to mind. “My lord, your sl – Vette told me that you destroyed a kolto tank?” He caught himself before he could refer to the Twi’lek as Lord Keszharra’s slave. Both Vette and Lord Keszharra herself had been quite adamant on the subject of Vette’s freedom.

“Hmm, yes.” Lord Keszharra gave him a self-deprecating smile, looking faintly embarrassed. “You … ah … were in something of a panic and the doctors were taking too long getting you out. I … expedited the process.”

_‘Expedited the process,’_ Quinn reflected, considering the amount of force required to smash through the solid panes of transparisteel encircling the tanks – and remembering as well the bandaging around Lord Keszharra’s hand when he had awakened. Those bandages were gone now, and he was relieved to see that her hand was unscarred. It was his turn to look embarrassed when he contemplated the need for her to ‘expedite’ matters, remembering the panic he had felt at waking to find himself trapped in the tank. He was a battle-seasoned soldier with almost two decades’ worth of military and combat experience; it wasn’t like him to fall apart so completely in the face of danger.

“I am sorry for that,” he said quietly, hanging his head, shame heating his face.

“Yes, well, you had just had a building dropped on your head. I think you come by your claustrophobia honestly, Captain. Besides, the trauma is still new to you. It may pass, in time.” Lord Keszharra’s tone was dry and allowed little room for self-recrimination as she seized his arm again, her grip solid. “And if it doesn’t … Well, I won’t mock _you_ for being afraid of tight spaces if you don’t mock _me_ for being afraid of hospitals.”

Quinn sucked in a breath, startled by that frank admission. Trying for levity, he said, “My lord, it sounds like there’s a story there …?”

Lord Keszharra just smiled at him and shook her head, releasing his arm and standing up in one fluid motion.

“Another time, perhaps, Captain.” She moved towards the exit then paused, giving him a stern look. “Vette’s already set course for Nar Shaddaa. This ship can fly herself, Quinn. Don’t wear yourself out on my account; the doctors were rather adamant about you taking it easy and giving yourself time to recover. I’m not opposed to tying you to your bunk in order to enforce those orders.”

“I will … take that under consideration, my lord,” he replied, blinking away the enticing images that comment immediately brought to mind. He wasn’t certain he would be opposed to that, either – provided she was the one doing the tying. _Get your act together, man!_ He shook his head, a dozen different codes and injunctions warning him against the dangers of fraternization – and with his superior, no less!

“See that you do, Captain.”

And with that, Lord Keszharra left, and Quinn found himself alone with much to think about – most of it _highly_ improper. He wondered if she had simply said that to distract him from worrying about his convalescence and subsequent panic attacks, and then decided that he honestly didn’t care. If it was a distraction then it was a very, very successful one.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/salaciouscrumpet


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